Despite being only a half-game out of first place in the mediocre Atlantic Division, the once-great Boston Celtics are a full 2 games out of the 8th playoff seed and a mile away from their 17th NBA championship.

In each decade – from the 1950’s to the 1980’s – only one basketball franchise was consistently brilliant enough to engineer a team that could, and would, win championships. But it’s been a long time since June 1986, back when Bill Walton was wearing black sneakers, back when Bird, McHale and Rick Carlisle were all on the same page, back when Red Auerbach was allowed to smoke… Back then was the last time the Boston Celtics tasted the cases of victory champagne that once upon a time never had the chance to become vintage.

This season, former favourite-son Danny Ainge has amassed a squad with height, talent, savvy and youth, yet instead of playing like the Phoenix Suns or Seattle Sonics (or even the currently 19-19 Chicago Bulls) and overwhelming the plethora of mis-matched and under-developed teams in the league at present, the C’s are abjectly mired amongst them.

It’s almost the halfway point of the season, and Boston haven’t been above .500 since they were 3-2 on November 12th. It always takes a while for a new coach and a roster with 3 first-round picks to jell, but instead of blooming over the Christmas/New Year period, the Celtics have drooped to 18-22, and have lost 5 of their last 8, including yet another embarrasing 4th Quarter collapse in Atlanta yesterday. Astonishingly, this season Boston have not won a game played on a Sunday, a Tuesday or a Thursday (although they’re back at home to face Charlotte the day after tomorrow). They’re not a young team, but they’re playing like it; the East is weaker than ever this season, yet Boston are atrocious on the road and they often play as if they’ve bet money on themselves not to make the playoffs.

What hurts most is not the losses, or the growing pains, or the missed 3-pointers. It’s that the 2004/05 Celtics should be a good team. Last season, Ainge gutted the roster and they still, temporarily at least, made the playoffs. Over the summer, he added a host of young talent via the draft, swindled the hated Lakers for Gary Payton, and made sure everybody was healthy. Mark Blount and Raef LaFrentz are both 6-11, they have a future hall-of-fame Point Guard, they’re a solid free throw shooting team, and Paul Pierce is still alive. Along with Ricky Davis and Jiri Welsch, Boston have 3 starting small-forwards in a conference that no longer has Tracy McGrady, Ron Artest or Richard Jefferson. They’re 4th in the league in field goal percentage, they score 100 points a game, and rookie Al Jefferson looks mighty like the next Amare Stoudamire (while further down the bench, Kendrick Perkins looks mighty like the next Al Jefferson). So why are they so bad?

Part of the reason is standing there on the bench, arms crossed, eyes glazed. Ainge may one day plan to coach this team himself, which might be the only reason Doc Rivers is still around. Under former tutor Jim O’Brien the Boston Celtics might have been shallow, they may have been flawed, but at the very least they worked hard on both ends of the floor. They spread the floor for each other on offense, and swarmed in together on D, but nowadays the Celtics have more talent, more length, more athleticism, yet they don’t actually guard anyone.

With any high-energy team, turnovers are inevitable (Boston give up the rock 16 times a night), but there’s no corresponding increase in steals or blocked shots reflecting defensive intensity and effort. I can’t find any stats on offensive fouls, but they seem to commit an awful lot of them, which not only costs a posession, it hurts Rivers’ team-foul and substitution situations. For every bucket the 2004/05 Celtics make, they give one up just as quickly, and that is unforgiveable.

Furthermore, rumours have been circling for a few months that Rivers doesn’t get on with Pierce, or vice versa. While #34 has been playing fewer minutes this season, his shooting percentages are up, albeit slightly, across the board, and his turnovers per game are at a 5 year low. With much-needed added depth this season, Pierce turns 28 this year and he doesn’t need to be ridden for 40 minutes a night anymore. This is a still-young veteran who’s missed 5 games the past 5 years; it’s a sensible policy.

But Ainge, Pierce and Rivers all need to agree on a strategy together. Pierce doesn’t want to waste another year in his precious prime on seasoning rookies. Rivers knows part of the reason he has a job is that O’Brien wasn’t giving enough time to the youngsters. For his part, Ainge can’t decide whether he wants to win now, or later, or both, so he ends up doing neither. These 3 men have enough basketball intelligence to recognise the embarrasment of their position in the standings, but that’s exactly where the Boston Celtics will remain if they’re not all committed to the same cause.

This offseason, Ainge frees up around $22 million off his bourgeoning salary cap (which currently includes payments to the carcasses of both Rick Fox and Vin Baker), and holds the whip hand in the inevitable summer negotiations with Payton. If he wants to make a headline grabbing trade for a gun point guard, he knows he can give up either Blount or LaFrentz (or Davis/Welsch) without affecting the balance of the squad, and he holds 2 first-round picks in the 2005 draft. So, in the medium term, currently being out of the playoff race isn’t that bad a thing, plus, the longer Kobe Bryant’s ankle keeps the Lakers sliding in the standings, the better.

Yet Boston are a talented team now, today. They exist in the East where, apart from Miami and LeBron James, every other team is at least as beatable as they are. There is no way Washington or Chicago or the LA Clippers should have a same or better record than the currently capable and once-unbeatable Boston Celtics. But until the Celtics administration acts as if they belong in the present instead of floundering on the past and/or gazing at the future, the players they pay to win basketball games will never consistently do so.

This is a team that could finish first in their division, or just as likely finish last; the ball’s in their court.